Over the last 2-3 weeks, we had a flooding of "Rock family" get-togethers and thus, a lot of pictures! Time for a re-cap:
A few days before Aiyana was born, my dad flew Jen out to Provo instead of flying himself out to visit her in Oklahoma. Jen was all about the visit since she did not want to be home alone while Rusty was away at a four-day conference. We were excited that she agreed to stay ten days, accompanied by her two kids, Kylana and Brax! We also hoped my baby would cooperate and come before Jen was scheduled to leave on May 24th, four days after Aiyana's due date. We were fairly confident this would happen, but just in case, this was also what partially inspired our walk along the Provo Trail (which did, in fact, seem to help naturally induce my labor).
I was so glad Jen could be here for all the excitement!
Kylana is sure a cutie. Her smiles are as infectious in person as they are in pictures!
Ta-Da! No more prego-belly! This was just a couple days after Aiyana was born. Jen and I went for a walk with the kids while my mom watched the baby. I needed to get some fresh air away from all my anxiety, so we just went to Bicentennial park behind the condo. Kylana loved the playground and it took a lot of coercing to get her to walk with us back to the condo. (i.e. Jen picked her up and carried her!)
Towards the end of Jen's 10 day visit, Rusty suddenly found out he had a work training in Salt Lake city the following week. We couldn't believe he was going to be in Salt Lake, while Jen would be left alone in Oklahoma after all, despite her efforts to avoid that situation. So... it just seemed to make sense for Jen to extend her trip a few more days until Rusty could join her! It also just so happened that Pawnee had previously planned to visit Utah over the very same weekend that Rusty came out, so all the "Rock siblings" ended up being in the same state, which doesn't happen very often. At one point, we were just missing Thomas and the Shipley kids! The condo started to become it's very own "Fullhouse", cheesy Karaoke night included:
Here's Jen and Rusty blaring out their romantic version of "Summer Lovin'." Aw, they are so cute together... actually, they did sound really good!
It started out with people choosing duets or solos to sing, since there were two microphones. But by the end of the night, all of us were crowded in the living room, singing along to every single song, from Oldies to the 90's to today's popular radio hits. Thanks, Ry and Emily, for a fabulous party idea!
Addie and Kylana had lots of play-dates together.
Those of you who know my mom know she is a photo-fanatic. With all of her kids and the newest grand-babies all in the same place, you had to know there was lots of picture-taking:
Brax (~7 weeks), Aiyana (~2 weeks), and Ethan (~3 months)
The Rock sisters with their respective babies
I can't look at this photo without remembering how my mom (who was behind the camera) was jumping wildly up and down on the couch, hollering and hooting to keep the grandkids' attention! (I couldn't help but think of a certain episode on Oprah involving Tom Cruise and his love for Katie Holmes...) There were lots of tears and struggles to escape this photo!
And so were the littlest ones. But Khun Yai got her picture, at last, no matter the cost of tears!
We made a few other field trips later that week:
Wheeler's Farm is a cute (if not the stinkiest) petting-zoo. Well, I don't know if you can actually pet the animals but they had all sorts of farm animals on display. (Hm... my wording makes it sound like they were taxidermied but they were very much alive, and did I mention stinky?)
We were really starting to get used to having Jen around long-term! It started to feel normal to call her up and say, "Hey, where should we meet up today?" (since she was staying up in Murray with Emily for their few days). We're all hoping she and Rusty will keep coming further west! Oklahoma is a good start, but somewhere within a day's drive would be fabulous.
Aiyana's three week highlights:
Khun Yai giving her a sink-bath.
I can't help it with the photos. I want to take pictures with every outfit she puts on! She just looks good in every color, although I have not tried orange yet... Not sure about that one. (That's always been Dan's favorite color and I try not to hurt his feelings when I suggest it really isn't his best look. Is that mean?)
Her outraged, cry-face we get once a day or so.
But mostly, she's pretty chill and sweet with us.
- Sweet, but a bit of grump at times! She still grunts and growls throughout the day and I keep wondering if she's constipated or if that's just her way of communicating. She's quite vocal, which makes me think maybe she's just like her daddy and likes the sound of her voice!
- She has two types of cry: Her "outraged" cry that is piercing, angry and sounds like she's being murdered! ...and her "hurt" cry if we've bonked her or hurt her feelings. She has the hugest bucket lip! I love that one! It makes me want to scoop her up and come to her rescue! and I do.
- She's still anti-binky for the most part, though I have been able to get her to take it on three separate occasions when she's been somewhat hungry. Otherwise, she usually gives me an exaggerated gag and refuses it. At least she's pretty easy to console without it.
- She's so good at nursing! It only takes her 10-15 minutes at most and I might wonder if she's getting enough, but she's getting chunkier and eats every 2-3 hours, which is normal. I have not given her a bottle as consistently as I did with Ty. She's not crazy about them, but with a lot of encouragement she'll eventually suck it down. My plan is to give her one bottle a day now to make sure she keeps up with it.
- She's broken free of her "newborn coma" and is much more alert. I love seeing her look around or stare into my eyes when I hold her or feed her. This also means she's waking up more at night and sometimes takes longer to go back to sleep. But on average, I feed her sometime between 10pm and midnight, then again around 2:30-3:30am, and then again around 5-6am. As the sun comes up, this is about when I give in and let her sleep in my arms.
So I posted this little quote on facebook but for memory sake, I'll post it again here:
*Last night's interaction between Dan and me: "Dan, you look like you got hit by a train." With a scowl, Dan retorted, "Yeah, well you look like you got beat by the ugly stick." Ah... so in love. It's what newborns do to you, I guess. = )
Good times, good times.
2 comments:
Oh how fun to have all of your family there at one time! It is not fair that you don't even look like you just had a baby. GRRRRRR. I look preggers for a whole year after I deliver! What a beautiful baby you have. I hope I get to meet her in July before you guys leave!
Your baby is so beautiful! I couldn't get enough pictures of my sweet little princess either. Glad you got to spend time with all your siblings. Those are great memories! Love you Erica!
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